Instructions to authors

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
Submission of a manuscript to PakistanJournal of Translational Medicine implies the authors of the paper understand and fully accept the policies of the journal as detailed in these Instructions to Authors. Please read these instructions carefully and follow them strictly to ensure that the review and publication of your paper is as efficient and rapid as possible. The editors reserve the right to return manuscripts that are not in accordance with these instructions.
All manuscripts submitted for possible publication, including text, tables, graphics, and supplementary materials, should be submitted online via the journal's online submission system at: www.pjtm.lumhs.edu.pk). Original source files are preferred (not PDF files). The author should specify a category designation for the manuscript (Original Article, Review, Case Report, etc.) and choose a set of classifications from the prescribed list available online. Authors may send queries concerning the submission process, manuscript status, or Journal procedures to the Editorial Office (pjtm@lumhs.edu.pk). Once the submission files are uploaded, the system automatically generates an electronic (PDF) proof, which is then used for reviewing. All correspondence, including the Editor's decision and any requests for revisions, will be by e-mail.

Peer review
This journal operates a double blind review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the manuscript editor for suitability for the journal once passed through Turnitin software. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to a minimum of one independent expert reviewer to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. The suggestions and objections of the reviewers after blinding are communicated to authors and only when reviewers are satisfy with the response of the authors than only the manuscript are accepted for publication.

Manuscript preparation
The author should submit the manuscript typed in MS Word. Manuscripts should be written in English in British or American style/format (same style should be followed throughout the whole text), in past tense and third person form of address. Sentences should not start with a number or figure. Any illustrations or photographs should also be sent in duplicate. Components of manuscript should be in the following sequence: a title page (containing names of authors, their postal and Email addresses, fax and phone numbers, including mobile phone number of the corresponding author), abstract, key words, text, references, tables (each table, complete with title and footnotes) and legends for illustrations and photographs. Each component should begin on a new page. The manuscript should be typed in double spacing as a single column on A4 (8-1/2" x 11" or 21.5 cm x 28.0 cm), white bond paper with one inch (2.5 cm) margin on one side.

Material for publication
The material submitted for publication may be in the form of an Original research (Randomized controlled trial - RCT, Met analysis of RCT, Quasi experimental study, Case Control study, Cohort study, Observational Study with statistical support etc.), a Review Article, Commentary, a Case Report, Recent Advances, New techniques, Debates, Adverse Drug Reports, Current Practices, Clinical Practice Article, Short Article, KAP (Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices) study, An Audit Report, Evidence Based Report, Short Communication or a Letter to the Editor. Ideas and Innovations can be reported as changes made by the authors to an existing technique or development of a new technique or instrument. A mere description of a technique without any practical experience or innovation will be considered as an update and not an original article. Any study ending four years prior to date of submission is judged by Editorial Board for its suitability as many changes take place over the period of time, subject to area of the study.

Original articles should normally report original research of relevance to clinical medicine. The original paper should be of about 2000-2500 words excluding abstract and references. It should contain a structured abstract of about 250 words. Three to 10 keywords should be given for an original article as per MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). There should be no more than three tables or illustrations. The data should be supported with 20 to 25 references, which should include local as well as international references. Most of the references should be from last five years from the date of submission.

Clinical Practice Article is a category under which all simple observational case series are entertained. The length of such article should be around 1500 – 1600 words with 15 – 20 references. The rest of the format should be that of an original article. KAP studies, Audit reports, Current Practices, Survey reports and Short Articles are also written on the format of
Clinical Practice Article. Evidence based reports must have at least 10 cases and word count of 1000 – 1200 words with 10 – 12 references and not more than 2 tables or illustrations. It should contain a non-structured abstract of about 150 words. Short communications should be of about 1000 words, having a non-structured abstract of about 150 words with one table or illustration and not more than five references. Clinical case reports must be of academic and educational value and provide relevance of the disease being reported as unusual. Brief or negative research findings may appear in this section.

The word count of case report should be 1200-1500 words with a minimum of 3 key words. It should have a non-structured abstract of about 100 – 150 words (case specific) with maximum of 10 references.

Review article should consist of critical overview/analysis of some relatively narrow topic providing background and the recent development with the reference of original literature. It should incorporate author’s original work on the same subject. The length of the review article should be of 2500 to 3000 words with minimum of 40 and maximum of 60 references. It should have non-structured abstract of 150 words with minimum 3 key words. An author can write a review article only if he/she has written a minimum of three original research articles and some case reports on the same topic.

Letters should normally not exceed 400 words, with not more than 5 references and be signed by all the authors-maximum 3 are allowed. Preference is given to those that take up points made in contributions published recently in the journal. Letters may be published with a response from the author of the article being discussed. Discussions beyond the initial letter and response will not be entertained for publication. Letters to the editor may be sent for peer review if they report a scientific data. Editorials are written by invitation.
0Between 3 to 10 key words should be given for all the category of manuscripts under the abstracts as per mesh [medical subject heading].

WRITING STYLE
Manuscripts must conform to acceptable English usage. Standard abbreviations should be used consistently throughout the article. Abbreviations should be spelled out the first time they appear in the text and followed in parentheses by the abbreviation.

PAGINATION
Begin numbering with the title page as page 1, the structured abstract page as page 2, and continue throughout the references, figure legends, and tables. Place page numbers in the upper right corner of each page.

TITLE PAGE
The title page should be typed double-spaced and include the title, authors' full names, highest earned academic degrees, institutional affiliations and location, and a short, abbreviated title of up to 40 characters or fewer. Designate one author (provide address, business telephone, fax numbers and e-mail address) to receive correspondence.

STRUCTURED ABSTRACT
Each article must include a structured abstract of no more than 250 words. Use the following headings for sections of the abstract: Objectives, Design, Setting, Methods, Results, Discussion and Conclusion. The abstract may not contain data not presented in the manuscript. The use of appropriate subheadings throughout the body of the text (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections) is required for manuscripts. Following format should be adopted for Original Articles. Meanwhile, for a case report, a brief abstract about case, introduction about subject, case report, discussion and references parts should be given.

INTRODUCTION
It should contain brief review of the topic with strictly relevant references & historical background. At the end, objectives and the rationale for the study should be mentioned.

METHODS
In this section, mention design, place and duration of the study. It should clearly state inclusion and exclusion criteria of the subjects. The methods and the apparatus used should be identified (with manufacturer’s name and address in the parenthesis), and procedures described in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Well established methods should be cited with references. Statistical tools used for analysis of results should also be mentioned in methods section with enough detail to enable the readers or researchers to verify the reported findings.
RESULTS
Important findings must be narrated in the text, tables and illustrations in logical sequence in numerical as well as in percentages. Repetitions should be avoided. Only important observations should be emphasized in precise manner.

DISCUSSION
It should emphasize the new and important aspects, implications and any limitations of the study. In this section, findings should be compared with already existing literature.

CONCLUSIONS
These should be specific to the goals of the study & authors own interpretation of the data. These should not be linked to other studies. Claiming priority or alluding to work that has not completed, must be avoided.

RECOMMENDATIONS
If author(s) want to present appropriate recommendations or suggestions, these may be included after conclusion section.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Persons who have contributed intellectually or technically to the paper but whose contributions do not justify authorship may be named and their function or contribution described. For example, “scientific advisor”, “critical review of study proposal “, “data collection” or “participation in clinical trial”. Such persons must have permitted to be named.

References
Vancouver style:
It is a numbered referencing style commonly used in medicine and science, and consists of:

Citations to someone else's work in the text, indicated by the use of a number.

A sequentially numbered reference list at the end of the document providing full details of the corresponding in-text reference.

Referencing Appendices
Referencing your own appendices in your own text:

Your appendix does not need to be referenced. It is enough to signpost it the body of your work, for example: (See Appendix A).

If you created your own appendix, and you've cited references, then number the references within the appendix consecutively in sequence with your written text and include them in your reference list.

Referencing appendices not written by you:

If the appendix was not written by you then place the numbered citation, in sequence with the rest of the text, at the end of the appendix and include the full reference in your reference list.

Tables and illustrations
Legends to illustrations should be typed on the same sheet. Tables should be simple, and should supplement rather than duplicate information in the text; tables repeating information will be omitted. Each table should have a title and be typed in double space without horizontal and vertical lines on an 8-1/2" x 11" (21.5 x 28.0 centimeters) paper. Tables should be numbered consecutively with Roman numerals in the order they are mentioned in the text. Page number should be in the upper right corner. If abbreviations are used, they should be explained in footnotes. When Graphs, scatter grams, or histograms are submitted, the numerical data on which they are based should be supplied. All graphs should be made with MS Excel and other Windows/Macintosh compatible software such as SAS and be sent as a separate Excel file, even if merged in the manuscript.

Figures and photographs
Photographs, X-rays, CT scans, MRI and photo micro-graphs should be sent in digital format with a minimum resolution of 3.2 mega pixels in JPEG compression. Photographs must be sharply focused. Most photographs taken with a mobile phone camera do not fulfill the necessary requirements and, therefore, not acceptable for printing. The photographs submitted must be those originally taken as such by a camera without manipulating them digitally. Photographs of published articles will not be returned. If photographs of patients are used, either they should not be identifiable or the photographs should be accompanied by written permission to use them.

S.I. units
System International (S.I) Unit measurement should be used. Imperial measurement units like inches, feet etc. are not acceptable.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Authors should identify that informed consent was obtained when applicable. The manuscript should also include the notation that the study was approved by the institutional committee on human research. Photographs of identifiable persons must be accompanied by signed releases showing informed consent. When reporting experiments on human subjects, it should be clearly indicated whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 1983. Patient’s names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material should not be used. When reporting experiments on animals, indicate whether the institution’s or a national research council’s guidelines for or any national law on, the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. All clinical research papers must be accompanied by evidence of peer review. The date the project was approved, when available, should also be included.

PROCESSING CHARGES
All manuscripts national and international are processed free of charge.

Policy on plagiarism
Plagiarism is the unethical act of copying someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results or words without explicit acknowledgement of the original author and source. Self-plagiarism occurs when an author utilizes large part of his/her own previously published work without using appropriate references. This can range from getting the same manuscript published in multiple journals to modifying a previously published manuscript with some new data. The journal is strictly against any unethical act of copying or plagiarism in any form. Plagiarism is said to have occurred when large portions of a manuscript have been copied from existing previously published resources. All manuscripts submitted for publication to PJTM are cross-checked for plagiarism using Turnitin Software. Manuscripts found to be plagiarized during initial stages of review are out-rightly rejected and not considered for publication in the journal.

Clinical Trial Number
For publishing a Clinical Trial in PJTM, the TRIAL NUMBER provided by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) is mandatory by law. The Trial may involve Drugs or Appliances.
"DRAP is an autonomous body under the administrative control of the Federal Government with its headquarters at Islamabad. DRAP is an Authority that provides approval to conduct clinical trials and import drugs which are to be used in clinical trials".
For more details access the following websites:http://www.dra.gov.pk/http://www.dra.gov.pk/userfiles1/file/ProcedureforClinicalTrialApplications.pdf

CHECKLIST FOR THE AUTHOR (S)

Cover Letter

Ethical statement for Research (only exception are letters to the editor and review articles; case reports require approval from the head of the department)

Complete Submission Statement Form signed by hand by all authors

Details of all authors including full names, email addresses, phone numbers and affiliations and degrees/year of study

Sequence of the headings should be adhered to strictly. Formatting of points 3-8 will depend on each manuscript type.

Title

Abstract

MeSH Words

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgement

Disclaimer

Conflict of Interest

Funding disclosure

References. Should be listed in Vancouver format in ascending order

Tables. Should be labelled and inserted in ascending order. These should appear at the end of the text and not inserted between the article sections

Figures. Should be appropriately labelled with numbers and appear with legends. All figures should be uploaded separately on the eJManager/webpage (online submission).

Additional supplemental files and documents as required.

AFTER ACCEPTANCEUse of the Digital Object Identifier
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI is a unique alpha-numeric character string assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes and is therefore an ideal medium for citing documents, particularly articles in press because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. Here is an example of a correctly given DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059

AUTHOR INQUIRIES
Here you will find everything from Frequently Asked Questions to ways to get in touch.
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